Before he became a doctor (and a famous footballer) Brazilian footballer Socrates apparently spent some of his student years in Dublin. My memory is hazy but I think I was told that while there he played for University College Dublin (UCD) in the FAI Cup, or it could have been that he only managed to make the UCD reserve team. Is there any truth to these unlikely stories? if so, maybe that's where he picked up his smoking habit", writes Colman Walsh

Amazingly enough Colman, you're right. "Socrates did play for UCD, but it was way, way back, sometime in the 70s." says Brendan McKenna of the Football Association of Ireland. "He was an attraction at the time, but it was before he played for the Brazilian team. He wouldn't have played much more than a season." That's confirmed by Gerry Callan of the Irish Star, who says he thinks Socrates did play for UCD, but only for the reserves on Saturday's as the first team played on Sunday, and he didn't want to play then. Did anyone see the great man in action for UCD? If so then let us know at the usual address.

"How are the Fifa rankings worked out? Germany have been pants for the last two years but are still ninth, above the Euro 2000 semi-finalists Holland. Is there some complicated Duckworth-Lewis style co-efficient or are the ratings decided on the whim of a Blatter?" asks an exasperated David Maton.

Well David, there is a method to Fifa's madness, which is explained in excruciating detail on their website. For those of you who can't be bothered reading through it all, you can rest assured that that the ranking list comes from a powerful computer program that gives a country points for each match they have played based on six criteria.

These are: a) whether a team wins, draws or loses; b) by how many goals; c) whether it's a home or away match; d) the importance of the match; e) the strength of the opponent; f) the regional strength of the team. All of which still doesn't explain why Wales are below Oman in the latest rankings.

"Does anyone know of any footballers that went to public school? I know Frank Lampard Jnr was one (he went to Brentwood). But are there any others?" wonders Joel Davison.

"Simon Morgan, once club captain and now the longest serving player at Fulham, attended King Edward VI Five Ways School in Birmingham," says Ben Homer. "I know this because he was my brother's best friend and then best man at his wedding."

"Is it true that a winner of a Cup Final medal was hung for sheep stealing in Australia in the early 1900s? I was told that it was an ex-Everton player," asked James Carlin.

"Well, if this is true, it can only be one of four members of the 1906 Everton team which won the FA Cup for the first time in the club's history - because the other seven are all documented as having departed this world a long time after the early 1900s," says Anthony Williams. The four possible names he mentions are John Crelley, Hugh Bolton, Alex Young and James Settle. Can anyone else narrow it down further?

Last week Kevin Rainey asked: If a free kick is advanced 10 yards by the referee into the penalty area does it become a penalty? The answer is of course no, it remains a free kick, but I would like to know what kind of free kick. I think any free-kick should become indirect on entering the area - am I right? And we fobbed him off with Fifa spokesman Andreas Herren, who insisted that the referee - no matter how much a team hassles him, or even if the original free kick was awarded a millimetre outside the box - can only move the ball to the edge of the area, and not into the penalty box.

Clearly, as Chris Harker points out, Andreas was wrong. "At the Leeds v Man City on Tuesday referee Graham Poll awarded Leeds a free kick on the edge of the City area. Alan Smith attempted to take it quickly but it was blocked by a City player only a few feet away, and the free kick was then advanced ten yards, well into the City area to be taken again," he says. The correct answer, says Kevin Rainey, is that the ball can move into the penalty area as far as the six-yard line, where it becomes indirect.

Can you help?

"Which is the oldest English League club (current or defunct); and if they can truly claim to be the first football club, who on earth did they play agains?" asks Matthew Szabo.

"In This is Spinal Tap, the bassist Derek Smalls can be seen to be wearing an early 80s Shrewsbury Town shirt. Have there been other incidences of silver screen glory for the lower league clubs?" asks James McKie, who says he's not interested in the thousands of times "Man U-bloody-United have managed to foist their brand onto celluloid.

"The Nationwide Conference is a national league, but the leagues that feed into it are regional (north, south and midlands). Presumably the winners of these leagues (Unibond, Dr Martens and Ryman) are promoted to the Conference, with the bottom three in the Conference going down. But what happens if, for example, the bottom three are all northern clubs. Do they all go back into the Unibond league (or whatever) or would some of them have to play in the 'wrong' league, geographically speaking. How is it all sorted out?" asks Andrew Tracey.